On March 25, 1945 the 45th Signal Company received a DUKW to use in the laying of communication cables across the Rhine.

Early on the morning of March 26 the construction section laid two cables across the Rhine. The telephone section crossed and established switching central on the east bank of the Rhine.

The conditions under which the men of the 45th Signal Company laid those cables were life threatening.

While the ground fighting had moved east, the Nazis were still firing artillery and rockets and launching air attacks at the Rhine crossings.

Along with the risk of drowning they also risked hypothermia, frostbite, or immersion (trench) foot. The water temperature was probably 32° F (0° C) and the March air temperature averaged about 41° F (5° C). My late father Felix A. Cizewski would have been very aware of that as he had just returned to duty after recovering from severe frostbite 3 months earlier.

On March 27, the rest of the 45th Signal Company crossed the Rhine and set up the normal Command Post communications systems in Zwingenberg.

Several Nazi soldiers surrendered to members of the company.

The company reported that their trucks and other vehicles were in bad shape because of constant use. A jeep threw a rod.

I do not know in which section of the 45th Signal Company my late father Felix A. Cizewski served so I do not know if he crossed the Rhine on March 26 or 27.

Glossary:

What does DUKW mean?

D = built in 1942

U = amphibious 2½ ton truck

K = front wheel drive

W = rear wheel drive

Acknowledgements:

The detailed information about the 45th Signal Company’s crossing of the Rhine is from the March, 1945 Company History whichDave Kerr obtained from the National Archives in College Park, Maryland.

A discussion with free lance writer Anne Gafiuk resulted in the addition of details of the life threatening conditions under which the 45th Signal Company worked.

The 45th Signal Company was responsible for connecting 45th with its Corps and connections between Division Command Post and all of the support units that were part of the division headquarters such as medical, engineers, and quartermaster.

In addition to the monument in the cemetery with the names of the deceased American air crews, Tamerville has also installed a “Tribute to Our Liberators” sign.

The sign details in French and English the stories of four aircraft that went down around Tamerville and recognizes Tamerville’s liberation by 8th Regiment of the 4th Infantry Division on June 20, 1944.

The sign continues with a report on the development of the Tamerville and Valognes area as a major communications center.

The text is one of the most profound tributes to support troops including my late father Felix A. Cizewski’s unit, the 3110th Signal Service Battalion.

Once Tamerville had been liberated by the 8th Regiment of the 4th Infantry Division on June 20, 1944, the village and Chiffrevast castle (former headquarters of Germany’s 709th Infantry Division) were occupied in July 1944 by specialized units of the Allied forces.

Bringing with them high-technology equipment, these women and men of the Signal Corps made Chiffrevast castle the first Allied communications center on the continent. This allowed major Allied headquarters to communicate rapidly with each other.

The castle basements housed many telephone, teletype and radio operators as antennas, transmission stations and barracks containing sensitive equipment were erected in the surrounding fields.

This communications center was operational from August 7 until mid-September of 1944.

During this time, the Signal Corps soldiers bivouacked in nearby orchards. The 3110th Signal Service Battalion, consisting of 13 officers and 220 enlisted men, was among these specialized units to work in Tamerville.

These troops had a supporting role that was essential to the Allied victory, and we owe them our freedom as much as we owe it to those who were at the battlefront. They are honored here.

Another in an ongoing series about our trip to France for the 70th anniversary of D-Day and the Liberation of France and the memorial in Tamerville. Tamerville is among the places where my late father Felix A. Cizewski, served in Company C, 3110th Signal Service Battalion.

George Dennebouy reading his French translation of Leonard Cizewski’s remarks at the Tamerville memorial, May 31, 2014.

Photo by Cheryl A. Robinson

My late father, Felix A. Cizewski, said very little about his service in World War Two. After he died, I looked at his copy of his records and found many gaps. I researched at the National Archives and discovered that he served as private in Company C, 3110th (thirty one tenth) Signal Service Battalion, Army Service Forces.

I once asked him if he ever wished to visit the places he served in Europe

He replied that he first wanted to see everything he could in the United States.

Then he added that if he ever returned to Europe it would be to see how it was rebuilt. He said he saw so much destroyed.

I thought he was referring to the well known destruction of German cities.

As my wife Cheryl and I prepared for our trip, we viewed the World War Two photos and movies of the damage done to Valognes by American forces to liberate it from the Nazis.

That made it clear that my father was referring to what he first witnessed here.

I realize how both the occupation and liberation caused great pain and loss of civilian life in Tamerville. Cheryl and I are here to also join you in honoring the civilians who suffered just as you are honoring the service of my late father’s company.

In February 1944, the 3110th Signal Service Battalion was sent to England where they worked on communications support for the liberation of France.

On July 26, while the rest of the battalion remained in England, my father and Company C landed at Utah Beach and traveled to a bivouac site outside of Tamerville.

My father’s Company C was the battalion’s Open Wire Repair Section with pole and wire construction and maintenance responsibilities.

He may have work on the communications facilities constructed in Valognes and the Chiffrevast Château near Tamerville.

For their work in England and France, my father and the 3110th Signal Service Battalion were awarded the Meritorious Unit Commendation.

On August 19, my father was sent to Cherbourg then to Paris where in December he suffered severe frostbite. After he recovered, he was transferred to the 45th Signal Company, 45th Infantry Division. He provided communications support for the combat units of his division as they liberated Dachau.

After returning from the war he worked as a truck driver in Chicago. He met and married my mother. They raised four children. He was most proud of his family.

When my son watched movies of the battles in Normandy I told him to imagine the ten or twelve men and women– including his grandfather—providing support behind every paratrooper.

Men and women such as my father seem at times to be forgotten or lost to history. I view your memorial for my father’s company as also being a memorial for the hundreds of thousands of women and men who provided support and service throughout the war. Your memorial means they will not be forgotten.

Ten years after my father’s death, you have given me a way to bond with him

Diorama in the Truschbaum Museum, Camp Elsenborn, Belgium of a medic treating GI with trench foot and cold injuries to his hands and face. This illustrates what Felix A. Cizewski suffered.(Photo Truschbaum Museum, used by permission.)

On Christmas sixty-nine years ago my late father, Felix A. Cizewski, was in an Army hospital in Paris with severe cold injuries, probably frostbite, to his hands and feet.

He was in a the Open Wire Repair Section of an Army Service Forces Signal Corps company based in Paris.

That meant he was working outside during one of Europe’s harshest winters in decades.

Dad suffered for the rest of his life with what may have been Raynaud’s Syndrome. Every winter his circulation would mostly shut down in his hands and his hands would be very pale and cold.

My father obviously suffered lifelong disability from his cold injuries. Along with the effects of tuberculosis he may have contracted while in the Army and the traumatic effects of arriving at Dachau about one day after its liberation and possibly helping to care for the survivors while stationed on occupation near Dachau, my late father may have been an unrecognized and uncompensated disabled veteran.

The November, 1942 Special U.S. Army Signal Corps Issue will be available soon.

The originals of both issues along with other Signal Corps related artifacts will be donated to an archive, museum, library, or historical society. An announcement of which institution accepts the donation will be posted on this blog.

The February, 1944 issue contained the following photo of what may be the 45th Signal Company constructing communications wire in Sicily

“Signal Corps men of the 45th Division” (possible the 45th Signal Company) setting up wire in Caltanissetta, Sicily. Undated.

This was about 17 months before Felix A. Cizewski was transferred to the 45th Signal Company in France in January, 1945.

While my late father is not in this photo, in my nine years of research this is the first photo I have found that illustrates in detail the type of work my late father did in France and Germany while serving in the 45th Signal Company in 1945

Among the reason Ms. Nagel shared these magazines is her hope that families of WWII Signal Corps veterans would find insight into their relative’s service or photos of their relatives.

I turn out to be one of those relatives who so far has found this photo and articles in the November, 1942 issue on the Signal Corps’ Camp Crowder, Missouri where my late father trained for about 19 months.

During the winter of 1944 my late father, Felix A. Cizewski served in Paris. He was in Company C, 3110th Signal Service Battalion, Army Service Forces. Company C was the battalion’s Open Wire Repair Section with pole and wire responsibilities including construction and maintenance.

That meant my father was working outside in the harsh 1944 winter. Lee Miller’s photo above illustrates the conditions in which Felix worked.

By December 10, 1944, Felix had suffered severe frostbite to his hands and feet and was hospitalized in Paris.

My father told my sister that when he was in the hospital among those whose care prevented amputation was a POW German doctor.

Author Alex Kershaw recently shared this photo on his Facebook Page. Alex Kershaw most recent work, The Liberator, is about Col. Felix Sparks of the 45th Infantry Division, the division in which my late father served. Alex Kershaw’s next book will be about Paris in WWII.

We also assist families in researching their ancestors’ service in the 45th.

In January, 1944 while serving in Italy as a member of the 135th Infantry Regiment, 34th Infantry Division, Private Robert J. Rankl was captured by the Germans.

He escaped and sought refuge near Monte Buono, Umbria, Italy.

On April 13, 1944, Private Rankl along with seven other soldiers were recaptured and executed by the Nazis in the San Benedetto churchyard near Monte Buono.

Because four of the victims were members of the 45th, our 45th group is researching all eight of the victims. I was assigned to make the Freedom of Information Act request for Private Rankl’s Individual Deceased Personnel File (IDPF).

I just received Private Rankl’s IDPF and have made it available on Scribd.

The file reports on the investigation of his murder, the location and identification of his remains, and in 1948 the return of his remains for burial in Saint Peter’s Cemetery in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.

On the Eastern Front, the Nazi murder of POWs was routine and a matter of policy. While some of the regular German army units did not execute prisoners, they were aware that the prisoners they took were often later executed by the SS units. At times regular Germany army units provided the SS units with armed escorts while the SS units executed POWs. Rarely if ever did regular German army units do anything to stop or even protest the murder of POWs.

Starting with the first moments of WWII in Poland, the Nazis executed Polish Jewish officer and enlisted POWs. Slavic Polish officer POWs were mostly executed as part of the Nazi policy to decapitate Polish leadership in order to more easily enslave the surviving Slavic Poles including enlisted Slavic Polish POWs.

As the Soviet Union was militarily allied with the Nazis at that time, the Soviets joined in the attack on Poland. The Soviets executed thousands of Slavic Polish POW officers and hundreds of Polish Jewish POW officers because they were suspected of being potential opponents to Soviet occupation of Poland and rule of Poland by the Soviet controlled Polish Communist Party.

The Nazis continued to execute the Soviet Jewish POWs while starving or working to death at least 50% of the Slavic Soviet POWs.

On the Western Front including Italy, execution by Allied POWs was done more frequently by SS units. In retaliation, Allied units became increasingly reluctant to take prisoners of SS troops. Regular German army units were more likely to attempt to follow the international rules of war on the treatment of POWs.

The German unit that executed Private Rankl and the other GIs is not identified in the documents.

Felix A. Cizewski, my late father, served in the 45th which is why I am a member of the group.